


You saw her bathing on the roof

by kmo



Category: Yentl (1983)
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide Madness 2012, Yuletide Treat, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:57:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is written that a wife may demand her husband.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You saw her bathing on the roof

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katekane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katekane/gifts).



> I loved your prompt so much, especially the idea of empowered!Hadass. It could be read either as an AU or as a scene left out of the movie. Title is stolen from Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

Dusk falls on yet another _shabbos._ Hadass slips in to the bedroom, gently as the gazelle of evening, to find her husband poring over Talmud. Always Talmud with Anschel. It seems the only way to reach her husband’s heart is through study, so Talmud, forbidden Talmud, it shall be.

“Anschel?”

“Hmm?”

She slides her body behind a screen and begins to unbutton her silk blouse. “I read the story of David and Bathsheba today,” she says, shrugging off her skirts.

“A warning that even the greatest among us can fall victim to lust and temptation.”

Hadass holds her fine cotton nightdress in her hand. She is about to put it over her head, but something makes her hesitate. She releases her grip and it falls to the floor, quiet as a snowfall. Dressed for battle in nothing but her corset and stockings, she emerges from behind the screen. “Do you think David found her very beautiful- Bathsheba?” she asks her husband.

Anschel looks at her aghast and shields his eyes. “Hadass, please! It is immodest for me to see you this way.”

She ignores Anschel’s shocked protests. “Do you find me beautiful, Anschel?”

“Of course I do. I've never known a more beautiful woman," he says with a blush. He struggles to reassure her; "I love the way your ribbons match the orange blossoms on the tea cups, the way you hum softly when you’re sewing. And I love your bravery for studying Talmud.”

Hadass knows this to be true. “I believe you,” she tells him. “But why won’t you love me in a way a husband loves his wife?”

Anschel’s boyish face is filled with shame. “I wish I could…Hadass…but I can’t.” Her husband turns to leave. “I should go study in the parlor.”

She catches Anschel’s arm, will not let him…or _her_ …evade the issue any longer. “Anschel, you think I don’t see?” Her husband stares back at her horrified and dumbfounded. “My father looks at you and sees a man too young to grow a beard, but I know better. Would a man praise how I made the biscuits all the same size? Compliment my hair ribbons and the patterns on the tea cups? I think not.”

Her husband…for he is still her husband and she his wife…stammers, “Then you should understand why we cannot.”

Hadass cups Anschel's smooth face in her hands, her dark doe’s eyes full of tears and says, “ _Where is it written?_ ” And she presses her soft pink lips against another pair of soft lips, brushes her full breasts against Anschel’s bound chest, entwines her long curling locks with her husband’s shorn ones. Kisses hard until Anschel lets out a throaty moan.

“A wife may demand her husband,” she insists. “It’s in the Talmud.”

Anschel hesitates. “But Avigdor…”

“I did not marry Avigdor.” She pauses then adds, “And neither did you.”

Anschel's expression is unreadable and for a moment his wife fears she has pushed him too hard. Silently, he checks the lock on their bedroom door and makes certain the curtains are well drawn before setting aside his spectacles. Hadass can see then his blue eyes are dark with lust. “You are right, Hadass. And I find I can deny you no longer.”

Hadass does not know whether she will find a girlish man or a handsome woman in their marriage bed, but she has long ceased caring. “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine,” she whispers and for once Anschel has no argument. 


End file.
